The Lhota Nagas
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Ktljaca. 33eui ^ork BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE ..1891 T3*f; Cornell University Library DS 432.N3M63 ^ The Lhota Nagas / 3 1924 024 053 534 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024053534 THE LHOTA NAGAS c*- MACMILLAN AND CO., Limitbd LONDON * BOMBAT - CALCUTTA ltiDRA3 • MELBOUENB THE MACMILLAN COMPANY H£W TORE • BOSTON • CHICAGO ' DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO ^^^^^^^^^^ 1 THE LHOTA NAGAS BY J. P. MILLS, LC.S. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY J. H. HUTTON, CLE. HON, DIRECTOR OF ETHNOGRAPHY, ASSAM Published hy direction of the Government of Assam MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1922 p/5-^ COPYRIGHT tri..K FEINTED IN GEEAT BHITAIN PREFACE I HAVE attempted in this monograph to give some account of the Lhota Nagas, a tribe whose dour attitude towards inquirers has caused them to be somewhat neglected in the past. Boasting no great knowledge of anthropology, I have avoided theories and confined myself to facts. During some three years' residence at Mokokchung as Assistant Com- missioner I have had considerable opportunity of becoming acquainted with the habits and customs of this tribe, many individual members of which are now my personal friends. The generosity of the Assam Government has made the publication of this monograph possible, and my thanks are due to my many friends who have assisted me in the preparation of it. But for the encouragement and advice of Mr. J. H. Hutton, Deputy Commissioner of the Naga HiUs and Director of Ethnography in Assam, it would probably never have been written. He has helped me throughout in every possible way, and has contributed a most valuable introduction and notes. I am further in- debted to Mr. Hutton for six photographs and a drawing, while for two other photographs my thanks are due to Mr. S. G. Butler. I have further to thank Miss A. M. Grace of Hove for the coloured frontispiece and Miss E. M. Paterson for the drawing of the median bands of the two types of riikhusu. Lt.-Col. J. Shakespear has been kind enough to do the index for me. It is through the hearty co-operation of my Lhota friends that I have been able to make some record of their tribal customs and beliefs, and my thanks are especially due vi PREFACE to Etsisao and Chongsemo of Okotso, Asao and Chamimo of Pangti, Santemo of Niroyo, Ranchamo of Seleku, Yanasao of Akuk, and Shambemo of Tsingaki. Tsansao, of the staff of the Sub-divisional Officer, Mokokchung, gave me invaluable assistance in recording folk-tales and typing my manuscript. The only previous account of Lhota customs which I have seen is that given by Mr. Hutton on pp. 362-370 of The Angami Nagas (Macmillan, 1921). Other investigators of Naga customs have, as a rule, dismissed them with a few words. Dr. W. E. Wither's Outline Grammar of the Lhota Naga Language (Calcutta, 1888) I found most useful. J. P. Mills. ——- CONTENTS TAGE Introduction ........ xi PART I General ......... 1 Introductory — Origin and Migrations — Appearance — Dress Ornaments^'Weapons—Character. PART II Domestic Life ........ 21 The Village—The " Morung "—The Head -Tree—The House— The Contents—Manufactures—Trade—Loans—Agriculture and the Ceremonies connected with it—Live-stock—Hunting—Fishing Food—Drink—Medicine—Drags—Games—Music—Daily Life. PART III Laws and Customs . .87 Exogamy—Polity and Village Organization—Property—Inheri- tance—Adoption—Settlement of Disputes—Oaths—Friendships War and Head-hunting—Slavery—Position of Women. PART IV . .113 Religion . Religion—Deities and Spirits—The Soul and Life after Death— Magic — Religious Officials — Public Ceremonies — Individual " Ceremonies—Ceremonies for Illness—Social " gennas —Birth Marriage—Divorce—Death—Miscellaneous Beliefs. vii — viii CONTENTS PART V PAGE Folk-tales and Songs . .174 PART vr Language . .... 207 PART VII Appendix A The Lhota Calendap. .... 226 Appendix B—Mensuration ...... 228 — . 2-30 Appendix C Human Sacrifice . Naga-Assamese Glossary ... 232 Index .......... 233 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO FACE AN ELDERLY ]NLi.N OF LUNGITANG WEARING LVNGPENSU AND BIG EAR-PADS .... 7 YOUNG MARRIED WOMAN (OF OKOTSO) . 7 ORNAMENTATION OF MEDIAN BAND OF RUKEUSU 10 SOUTHERN LHOTAS IN FULL DRESS 13 CHAMIMO OF PANGTI ..... 13 A LHOTA WARRIOR IN FULL DRESS 14 TYPES OF OBSOLETE DAOS (YANTEANG) . 16 A LHOTA VILLAGE—HUMTSO .... 23 THE DOYANG RIVER FROM BELOW CHANGSiJ . 23 A LHOTA MORUNG 25 A LHOTA HOUSE . 31 SPINNING 39 WEAVING 39 FISHING 71 108 MINGETUNG . VILLAGE OEA AT THE FOOT OF MINGETVNG 108 AN OPYA BRISTLING WITH BAMBOO SPEARS THROWN AT " " . IT AT THE OYANTSOA GENNA . 123 MORUNG {CEAMPO) AT PANGTI ..... 123 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO PACE PAGE "genna" stone tied on to a bamboo frame-work ready to be carried up to the village for the stone-dragging ceremony ..... 142 grave of a warrior decorated with his ornaments and a tally of the heads he has taken . .142 (northern lhotas) . FORKED POST (TSONGZU) AT YEKHUM, PUT UP INSTEAD OF A " GENNA " STONE ...... 144 THE TWO PUTBIS OF AKUK COLLECTING RICE FOR THE TUKU CEREMONY ....... 144 ENO .......... 160 NEITANGPENG OF A MAN WHO HAS KILLED AN ELEPHANT 160 A MEDICINE MAN (RATSES) IN A FIT .... 164 A DANCER AT THE REBUILDING OF A JIORUNG . 164 MAPS SKETCH MAP TO SHOW TRIBES AND PLACES MENTIONED IN THE INTRODUCTION ..... xl MAP SHOWING LHOTAS AND NEIGHBOURING TRIBES at end MAP OF THE LHOTA COUNTRY . „ — INTRODUCTION When I made over charge of the Mokokchung Sub- division of the Naga Hills to Mr. MiUs in November 1917, I m'ged him to study in particular the Lhota tribe with a view to writing a monograph on them. The reason why I selected the Lhotas was that it appeared to me that they, more than any other tribe in the Naga Hills District, were beginning to lose their distinctive features and were in danger of early denationahzation between the upper and the nether mill-stones of Christianity, as taught by the American Baptist Mission, and Hinduism, as practised by the Nepah settler or by the Assamese who are the neigh- bours of the Lhota on the plains side. It was already a very rare thing to see a Lhota in ceremonial dress, and it was a, to me, unpleasantly common thing to have Lhota ceremonies and the officials of the Lhota hierarchy spoken of in spurious terms of Hinduism. The Baptist Mission, with its headquarters at " Impur " in the Ao country, was at work in the north, and one of the first disputes I had to deal with when I went to Mokokchung in 1913 was a complaint from the village of Pangti that a missionary had been initiating his converts by immersing them in the viUage spring, to which the village elders objected both on sanitary and religious (or, if you wiU, superstitious) grounds on the lines of Tennyson's Churchwarden when he com- plained of the Baptists " They weshed their nasty sins in my pond, and it poisoned the cow." The Hindu tendency was most noticeable in the south, and it was at Kohima that one of my Lhota interpreters, by xi xii INTRODUCTION his office the natural guardian and exponent of tribal customs, came to me to ask for leave, as his village was about to perform the " Lakshmi puja," by which he meant the Rangsikam. I am happy in thinking that not only have Mr. Mills' efforts in investigating the customs and beliefs of the Lhota tribe succeeded in putting them on record while there was yet time, but they have also incidentally contributed not a little to revivify their observance. For there is no ques- tion but that they had begun to lose their hold. The prohibition of head-hunting alone was bound to act in that direction. In one small and decaying village (Lisio) Mr. Mills found that there had been no Puthi, and therefore presumably no communal ceremonies, for twenty years. There is now a Puthi and the ceremonial Ufe of the village has acquired fresh vigour, and I have some hopes that the decay that had set in may be thereby staved off, for it cannot contribute to healthy life to be deprived entirely of all public and commimal ceremonies, and to revive them may do good. Again, at Okotso, when I first knew it, about a third of the village had turned Christian : the remainder, having observed that no immediate disaster seemed to follow the forsaking of ancestral customs, but being in no wise desirous to take up the burden of the angel of the Church of Impur, who looks with disapproval on tobacco and the national dress and insists on total prohibition as regards fermented liquor, had lapsed into a spiritual limbo in which they observed no religious customs at all. The " morungs " had fallen into decay and the young men would not take the trouble to renew them ; the village ceremonies, if observed at all, were observed in the most perfunctory manner, and the community as a whole took neither part nor interest, giving at best an apathetic conformity not perhaps entirely unparalleled in modern Britain. How far it is due to Mr. Mills' interest in Lhota custom I do not know, but the non-Christian population of Okotso has cer- tainly reformed, rebuilt its "morungs," and re-instituted the Oyantsoa in its fullness. The hill country in which the Lhota lives is a very ; INTRODUCTION xiii beautiful one indeed.